Cottage of Sweets

The Cottage of Sweets is such a charming building. One would almost think the building was originally designed to be a Sweet Shop. In reality, the building was originally built in 1922 on Delores Street. Later, the building was actually rolled down Ocean Avenue using logs as the mover. I would love to locate a picture of that! Can you imagine how many parking tickets you would accumulate trying to move the building down Ocean Avenue today? The year of moving seems to be in 1923, when the Court of the Golden Bough was designed and built by Ted Kuster. The first person to sell anything out of the Cottage was Ruth Kuster, wife of the designer and builder of the courtyard. Originally a weaving shop, the cottage was also used to sell tickets out of a side window for performances at the beautiful Court of the Golden Bough Theatre. The cottage would later become a dress shop under the ownership of Anna Katz. There were two major fires at the theatre behind the cottage, one in 1935, and another in 1938. It makes me wonder how good (or bad) the acting must have been in those two years. I guess throwing fruit wasn’t enough. The last fire ended the theatre, and the courtyard was redesigned as the first official shopping center in Carmel. The stage was set, (no more fires), for the cottage to become the Cottage of Sweets, when a gentleman from B.C. Canada, Wally Cullomore, decided Carmel needed a Sweet Shop. So, in 1959 the curtain was raised, on a much loved performance. The award winning: (best smelling) and (best tasting) shop in Carmel. The Cottage of Sweets, Voted by children, “most likely shop to go to when in Carmel”, every year since opening.